Paragliding
Paragliding , paragliding or paragliding is an air sport with free-flying (that is, without a connecting line to the ground), controllable, stiffening-free paragliders without specifying the type of glider. These can be divided into parachutes (flat parachutes!) And paragliders according to their main purpose. The pilot sits in a parasailing in the paraglider related harness. With the wing open, you usually start by foot from the mountain.
“ Paragliding ”, which is mostly used synonymously today , already contains a statement about the type of umbrella used and describes in the narrower sense “paragliding with paragliding”, which has largely replaced “paragliding with parachute” (see also mountain flying ) since around 1985 because of the increasing specialization in the wing Has.
history
The conceptual idea for such paragliders goes back to 1948. In practice, paragliding began in 1965 with the first flights of the specially developed - and therefore also to be regarded as the original paraglider - single-faced five-arched Sailwing by Dave Barish, a further development of his three-arched rectangular single- wing parachute, which was developed in 1964. In 1966, Barish, together with his son and in 1966/68 together with Dan Poynter, propagated Slope Soaring by means of public demonstrations in ski areas as a new sport, so u. a. also in Catamont and Lake Placid with paragliding flights at the ski jumps there. However, the time was not yet ripe for this idea and even after the first mountain flight with a parafoil took place in 1967, a double-faced, multi-cell parachute also developed by Domina Jalbert in 1964, and thus basically two systems were available, paragliding initially remained an extravagant one Marginal phenomenon. With the discontinuation of the parachute research programs by NASA in the late 1960s, Barish gave up the development of the Sailwing. The further spread of paragliding was no longer based on Barish's “paraglider” as an independent technical aircraft, but was initially based on the further development of the parafoil parachute system, which was also capable of mountain launch.
“Slope soaring / paragliding” first entered the consciousness of a somewhat larger public in the 1970s. Not least, the better-known publications by Dan Poynter have played a decisive role in this: after he had published an article about "Slope Soaring" in Parachutist Magazine in 1970, Poynter described it again in 1972 in the "Parachute Manual" and described it as a parachute test option Repairs. In 1973 his book "Hang Gliding" was published, in which paragliding is described as a similar sport. In 1974 he propagated parasailing in a textbook .
The idea of paragliding was also represented in Germany and Austria by 1972 at the latest: Michael Melzer and Hans Ostermünchner pursued the idea of parachute foot-starts. In strong winds Hartmut Huber, who later co-founded Parasail, flew from the ski jump in Kitzbühel . On September 18, 1976, Heinz Fischer and Volker Rademacher started with a 7-cell PARASLED from the Rohrkopfsattel Tegelberg and flew into the valley.
The French Bosson, Betemps and Bohn became particularly well-known in 1978 when they tried to launch again with wing parachutes and in the early 1980s competitions were already being held in Mieussy in the French high Alps . So-called mountain flying with suitable parachutes had for the first time changed from an unusual hobby of individual individualists into a somewhat broader sporting movement, which also became attractive for “mountain pilots” who were not already parachutists anyway. Because of the very low glide performance of the parachutes of max. However, 1: 3 starts were mostly made in steep terrain and gullies. The flight was still essentially limited to a quick descent into the valley.
Parallel to mountain flying , paragliding emerged as an independent sport from around 1980 with the renewed development of special parachutes (like the flat parachutes, however, also based on the two-surface multi-cell from JALBERT) - almost as Barish had imagined in 1965.
Initially much more unstable, but hardly more powerful than corresponding jump parachutes, the new specialized "paragliders" caught up in terms of safety and began to surpass the misappropriated parachutes on the mountain from around 1985 with better glide angles and significantly better handling.
